Depression Is Estimated to be More Than Twice as Common Among LGBTQ Older Adults
Hi everyone! I’m Briana Davis, and I am so excited to connect with you through the Sirianna Relationship & Sex Therapy community. As a therapist, I’m passionate about creating spaces where people feel seen, especially when navigating the intersections of identity and mental well-being. This passion is what drove my master’s thesis at Penn State, where I dove into how we can adapt traditional therapy to genuinely support sexual minorities.
Did you know that depression is estimated to be more than twice as common among LGBTQ older adults compared to their non-LGBTQ peers?
While standard talk therapy is an incredible tool, it can miss the lifelong layers of minority stress that drive these statistics.
A massive piece of this puzzle is the heavy emotional toll of identity concealment. For so many older adults, hiding who they were was a survival strategy to keep their jobs, their safety, and their families intact. While identity concealment protects you from immediate danger, it takes a massive psychological toll over time and, ironically, becomes a huge barrier to seeking care. The constant, exhausting vigilance of scanning rooms, filtering your words, and worrying about being “found out” directly feeds into chronic anxiety and depression. Then, when support is needed most, that deeply ingrained fear of facing judgment or non-affirming healthcare providers keeps people from ever reaching out for help.
This lifetime of navigating a hostile world naturally shapes a person’s deepest beliefs about themselves. Over decades, external stigma turns inward. It solidifies into painful automatic thoughts, like believing you are inherently unworthy of love, destined to be alone, or that showing your true self is fundamentally unsafe. In therapy, we have to look beyond everyday worries. We have to help clients untangle these deep, decades-old knots, guiding them to realize that these negative self-appraisals are the historical residue of an unfair world, not inherent truths about their value.
Moving past survival mode requires an approach that weaves these specific identity struggles into the healing process. Instead of just giving standard advice to fight depression, we focus on meaningful, identity-focused reconnection, gently helping older adults step out of isolation and find safety in affirming, queer-friendly spaces. We also lean heavily into communication and boundaries. For someone who spent a lifetime staying silent to stay safe, learning to confidently state their needs is life-changing, especially when navigating healthcare or eldercare environments where they fear facing bias.
Therapy is never one-size-fits-all. By bringing cultural humility and a real understanding of generational trauma into the room, we can help older LGBTQ adults safely set down the weight of concealment and finally step into the authentic, peaceful lives they’ve always deserved.
If you’re feeling the weight of your own journey and want to explore what affirming support could look like for you, please reach out to us here at Sirianna Relationship & Sex Therapy. I’d love to meet you.
Warmly,
Briana K. Davis (she/her)
Outpatient Therapist
Sirianna Relationship and Sex Therapy
M.A. Clinical Psychology | B.S. Psychology
